Friday, October 1, 2010

Friday Floor Plan Porn

Since Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter are still on the vacay we're going to cut things a bit short today but did want to offer the children a juicy morsel to keep their real estate appetites whet.

The subject of our discussion, the so-called Caspi Icon penthouse in pretty Puntarenas, Costa Rican, is not a celebrity owned property and, even though Costa Rica is trés chic among sophisticated glitterati types, nor is it likely to be purchased by a denizen of the gossip glossies. However, the developers of this super-sized penthouse in Puntarenas–we're quite certain–would like for the penthouse itself to be the celebrity. See kids, the asking price for this titanic triplex penthouse on the western coast of Costa Rica is an astounding $51,040,000, a price that guarantees that just about every real estate gossip around the world will ooh and aah over the penthouse thereby providing them with invaluable amounts of free publicity. We, of course, are simply riding the coat tails of that band wagon.

According to marketing materials for the yet to be built beach front building topper that occupies the entire top three floors of the yet to be erected Genesis building, the penthouse is planned with a mega-mansion sized 34,794 square feet of sleek interior space and another 33,665 square feet of exterior space. The developers have billed the aerie as the "World's Largest Penthouse." We don't know whether that is an accurate assessment or not, but the Caspi Icon is about twice the size of the penthouse in Monaco recently sold by British property developers and interior decorators Nick and Christian Candy for more than $300,000,000.Marketing materials indicate that in addition to the 4 bedrooms and 4 full and 3 half poopers, the plans for the glassy penthouse property show the main living level (above) includes a double height living room, a large dining room and a even larger dining hall that seats a staggering 58 people, two conference rooms–because one is never enough in a private home–a surprisingly and shockingly small kitchen, and a media/family room larger than Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter's entire damn house. There appears to be just one itty-bitty windowless staff room with two tiny twin beds and a private pooper next to the kitchen. The master suite with it's dual walk in closets and poopers is located on the ocean end of the penthouse on the upper level (below) which includes four additional bedrooms each with private pooper, four additional sitting rooms, and fitness facilities that include a pooper, steam room and dry sauna and, bizarrely, a built in boxing ring.Walls of floor to ceiling glass wrap around the two main floors of the penthouse and slide open to a slim balcony that encircle the living spaces. A large terrace on the land side of the main floor has a built in spa and a small dining terrace on the east side of the penthouse is a perfect spot for sipping morning coffee.The top floor of the pricey penthouse (above) includes a roof top tennis court, putting green, a couple of wide grassy strips that connect the front of the roof top to the back, vast terraces at all four corners, and an infinity edged swimming pool flanked by two dressing rooms, two poopers and outdoor kitchen and grilling areas. The penthouse's piece de resistance perhaps is the private helipad perched atop the building so the the freakishly rich owners and their guests need never travel by car on the Costa Rican roadways that Your Mama recalls from our one trip to the country are not always very well maintained.

While it's true that rich folks are flocking to Costa Rica in droves, it remains to be seen if there's really a market for a fifty million clam penthouse. We sorta doubt it, but then again, what do we know about anything?

My father lived in Costa Rica for 8 years and well, he claims it's not all it's cracked up to be. He lived on the beach in Playa Potrero in a very nice place. He was robbed a couple of times. People were always attempting to extort money from him. Once someone cut the power to his property and then tried to extort $10,000 from him to have it fixed. My sister had to leave the local private school because of bullying. He was run off the road and had guns pulled on him 3 times. My fathers wife is Costa Rican and it didn't help. There is a very big gap between the rich and the poor that makes for a lot of instability.

whoever came up with the floorplan for this place is an uber douche. what a terrible layout and amenities. they would be much better served selling it for 10M and letting the owner do all the work. if i were buying this i would demand they not touch those floors once the initial construction is done.

Practically speaking, $50MM+ for this penthouse anywhere is a joke; its floorplan resembles nothing so much as the Trump International Hotel and Tower on Columbus Circle in NYC.

A flop as an office tower, scaffold-ed for years and swaying violently, its conversion to a hotel & residences can't hide the fact that it is still an office building.

This proposed building may be much smaller in scale, but it still has the same lack of charm; the layout of the penthouse isn't user-friendly, and although it is undeniably sybaritic and indulgent, it is certainly neither domestic nor residential.

The whole thing is sad, especially the first-year-interior-design-school-at-the-office-park floor plans and renderings. What it does convey perfectly is some moron's vision of luxury and the best possible way to dispose of fifty-one million bucks. The perfect condo for some up and coming drug lord.